Photography, Art & Enlightenment

Still playing with Uen's digicam. She said okay to borrowing it for one more week. I said hooray and she commented i was like a little boy with a toy haha. I am indeed playing with it like a toy, experimenting, using it like a third eye, zooming in and out on intricate details and landscapes. It's like an eye-consciousness cum sight-mindfulness increasing device. Whenever i have it with me, i pay more attention to what i see, and learn to appreciate things as they are more, as i go snapping away.

Photography is not really about creating art; it is about noticing and freezing art which is around us all the time. It is an exercise of mindfulness. A photograph is a freeze-frame of transience- an attempt to capture a moment in time for reflection, an attempt to make the impermament more permanent... though photos yellow too. The more it seems pointless to snap anything anymore is the more equanimous the photographer has become- no longer having attachment or aversion to certain things. The enlightened see all as art, which i define as something "okay in itself or with something else." Sound strange? Enlightenment is the art of seeing all as art. When that is achieved, the concept of art is let go of.

(The difference between a digicam and a normal cam to me is that i can snap away without concern of cost or mistakes- since stored pics can be deleted and downloaded to my notebook as i like it. It can thus be more easily played with like a toy! Will get one soon.)